


Sovereignty

by windhaven



Series: Aradianity [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, International Fanworks Day 2015, Nationalism, Other, Romanticized Depictions of Violence, philosophical musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:33:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3369677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windhaven/pseuds/windhaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aradia Megido loved the countries of ancient Alternia.</p><p>Written for the prompt of AO3 International Fanworks Day 2015 challenge: What does Aradia Megido get fannish over? And then I promptly overshot the word count.</p><p>(You don’t actually need to know Hetalia to read this; it's a very loose and thematic association. The only idea you need is that Hetalia is the moe anthropomorphization of political entities. And really, we all antropomorphize political entities to some extent in daily life.)<br/>Hmm, you read this without reading Homestuck....it's some sort of alien civilization, okay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sovereignty

There was a time before the Alternian Empire.

A time when there was not one absolute government, but many - these ancient countries were free and sovereign. They chose with whom to trade, they enforced their own laws and not someone else's, they made their own decisions and paid for the consequences themselves. They each believed in their own exceptionalism while witnessing the reality of foreign absolutes. To wield authority, to at once serve and govern, to find subjectivity in the chaos, and how much they _lived_ -

Fell out and made up with their politicians, were loved and hated by their people, strove to protect them, and demanded to be protected. Forged petty rivalries among themselves, insisted that they were free and independent. They fed their people into the machine, to serve their home and their people whom they _loved_ , invested in their future, and prepared to send a million to their deaths.

And their people would die for them. Kill for your country, die for your country. Back then people would fight not for the glory of some abstract Empire, but fought and died for their homeland. _Home_.

And the countries fought their pitchest romances on the battleground of war, faced off against each other to see who was really the stronger. The ancient countries toyed with fantasies of raw, bleeding _power_. Immortal beloved, and indispensable despised! Love and hate were ground together in the strife, and they were exactly the same thing. This was the source of their strength. The glue that _binds_ , the force that _moves_.

And yet, one by one, they fell to the Alternian Empire. They were subjugated and made lifeless. And then, without disappearing into history like most empires do, this Empire held it together with ridiculously unparalleled _competence_. The onetime nation, dead and dying, caught in the shadow of an absolute God, crumbled and withered into ruin and dust.

How could anyone achieve this, extinguish forever those who were so _strong_ and _powerful_ and _alive_? You know with your head that it was the tyranny of the ancient lusus of the deep, and her psychic scream. The whole Empire knew that it was only by the grace of the Empress that they were allowed to keep living, and held her in fear. You are aware that you are a rustblood and if you wish to think of it that way, yes, above your life is a sword hanging by a thread. But what did they have to fear so much? After all, the Empress would be _nothing_ without the people.

And this you know to be a fact. This Empire should have come down a long time ago.

**Author's Note:**

> Why I read Aradia as a Hetalian, over [here](http://ghosts-in-the-architecture.tumblr.com/post/111196001793/sovereignty-dydbunnies-homestuck-hetalia) on my tumblr.


End file.
